[DTB] UG Survival / Vengevine (formerly UG Madness)

[Koby]

You bring a good point regarding Mental Misstep in this deck. I've gotten another inspiration to revisit my old, mostly mono-green list. For referrence, and as a comparison point:

LED UG VV
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Quirion Ranger
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Basking Rootwalla
4 Vengevine
1 Ornithopter
4 Daze
1 Wonder

4 Wasteland
8 Fetch
2 Forest
2 Tropical

Obviously Survival is banned, and LED loses its speed factor, so those are cut. In their place, we can use GSZ to act as a one-shot Survival, mostly to pickup Mongrel or Fauna Shaman. Also updating the Dazes to MM gives the deck more muscle on the first few turns w/o effecting the mana development. Finally, adding Intuition back in gives the deck an explosive turn 3.

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Mental Misstep
3 Intuition
4 Vengevine
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Llanowar Elf
1 Fyndhorn Elf
3 Quirion Ranger
3 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Viridian Shaman (gtfo Batterskull/Jitte)

4 Wasteland
7 Fetch
3 Tropical Island
2 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle

I may want to increase the # of Cradles for more of an explosion factor; however getting the Tropical seems like a much more solid plan.

Has anyone tested something like this recently? I'm starting to play a few games with this. I'll keep notes on what I play and the outcome.

[DragoFireheart]

Extirpate

Surgical Extraction

Solutions? I don't like something that just rolls to a 1cmc split second spell or a spell that is free to cast at any moment in any deck.

[lorddotm]

Yeah, I'm actually convinced that this deck isn't good anymore, I mean come on a free spell we can counter with our free spell, far too overwhelming. And for some reason Pate is being played more these days.

/sarcasm

I think you are going in the right direction, but do you lose anything by dropping a pair of LLanowar for a Fyndhorn (Cabal Therapy, etc.) and a Dryad Arbor (Zenith mandates this).

[menace13]

Extirpate

Surgical Extraction

Solutions? I don't like something that just rolls to a 1cmc split second spell or a spell that is free to cast at any moment in any deck.

Ground Seal?

[Koby]

Extirpate

Surgical Extraction

Solutions? I don't like something that just rolls to a 1cmc split second spell or a spell that is free to cast at any moment in any deck.

Extirpate I can't conceivably beat, but Surgical Extraction is easily countered by Mental Misstep. Not many decks pack this kind of hate lately, and with the rising amount of Control decks, I think this deck may be the silver bullet to the metagame. At least testing will reveal whether this is true or not.

I think you are going in the right direction, but do you lose anything by dropping a pair of LLanowar for a Fyndhorn (Cabal Therapy, etc.) and a Dryad Arbor (Zenith mandates this).

I don't see any reason why any 5 mana-elves could be used. I prefer to maintain them elves to utilize Wirewood Symbiote as re-triggers for Vengevine. Dryad Arbor is also a good candidate for inclusion, but I prefer not to run lands that don't tap on the first turn out, especially with the low amount of lands already in the deck.

[lorddotm]

Extirpate I can't conceivably beat, but Surgical Extraction is easily countered by Mental Misstep. Not many decks pack this kind of hate lately, and with the rising amount of Control decks, I think this deck may be the silver bullet to the metagame. At least testing will reveal whether this is true or not.



I don't see any reason why any 5 mana-elves could be used. I prefer to maintain them elves to utilize Wirewood Symbiote as re-triggers for Vengevine. Dryad Arbor is also a good candidate for inclusion, but I prefer not to run lands that don't tap on the first turn out, especially with the low amount of lands already in the deck.

That is why I wasn't replacing a land for it, but rather a creature that taps for mana.

[DragoFireheart]

Yeah, I'm actually convinced that this deck isn't good anymore, I mean come on a free spell we can counter with our free spell, far too overwhelming. And for some reason Pate is being played more these days.

/sarcasm

Yup, we can just counter their spells for free while they have no free spells of their own! Also, the hundred variations of graveyard hate also don't exist! This deck is faster, more resilient, and can drop giant 6/6 flying color-lockers without paying any mana better than Dredge!

/sarcasm

Why the fuck should I play Bad-ey-vine over Dredge? Why? What does it do better? Run a couple counter spells? You run mostly terrible creatures to enable a once-broken Elemental veggie that is now a PoS card. Graveyard hate affects this deck far more than Dredge. Dredge can slow roll into victory without casting a single spell. You seem to propose that this deck is somehow viable. Here, let me list the issues with this deck:

- It's far weaker to yard hate than Dredge and even Reanimator (arguably). Reanimator can drop a giant dude far better than we can and we go to much further lengths than them to do so. A 6/6 with color lock, a dude on a flying lion that prevents the opponent from attacking, or a giant Pro-Green, Pro-Red Sphinx of Doom is a lot more scary than a 4/3 with haste.

- You run fucking Basking Rootwalla and other weak, terrible creatures.

Why the fuck should I play Bad-ey-vine over dredge? Why? What does it do better? Run a couple counter spells? You run mostly terrible creatures to enable a once-broken Elemental veggie that is now a PoS card. Graveyard hate affects this deck far more than Dredge. Dredge can slow roll into victory without casting a single spell. You seem to propose that this deck is somehow viable. Here, let me list the issues with this deck:

- It's far weaker to graveyard hate than Dredge and even Reanimator (arguably). Reanimator can drop a giant dude far better than we can and we go to much further lengths than them to do so. A 6/6 with color lock, a dude on a flying lion that prevents the opponent from attacking, or a giant Pro-Green, Pro-Red Sphinx of Doom s a lot scary than a 4/3 with haste.

- This deck runs fucking Basking Rootwalla and other shitty little creatures. Meanwhile, giant 4/4 islandwalking merfolk, flying 5/5 demons or 4/5+ Tarmogoyfs are chomping you.

- Fauna Shaman is ass and is no replacement for SotF.


Splash Vengevines and Fauna Shaman into Elves or some mono-green beats for lulz: at least in elves you will be without a shortage of creatures to revive the Vengevine and graveyard hate is only minorly annoying. You can cast your veggies and let them swing. Or use the Fauna shaman to dump them in the yard. If they get pathed, eh, oh well. If they die, great: you run a gazillion elves so they will get revived shortly.

But Basking Rootwalla? Wild Mongrel? This deck died out for a reason.

It sucks.

[Admiral_Arzar]

It sucks.

I still want to try playing an LED/Intuition version of this deck. The turn 1 LED, discard Vengevines, madness dudes, unzip, thud opener just sounds like so much fun.

[DragoFireheart]

I still want to try playing an LED/Intuition version of this deck. The turn 1 LED, discard Vengevines, madness dudes, unzip, thud opener just sounds like so much fun.

Well, that is a entirely different story. I won't comment on the "fun-ness" of this deck, but I do remember how much fun dumping Vengevines onto the battlefield was back when SotF was legal. By all means, play it for fun, but don't claim it's good.

[Koby]

It sucks.

Show me your playtest results and I might be convinced your diatribe wasn't just hot gas.

[furrylobster]

Show me your playtest results and I might be convinced your diatribe wasn't just hot gas.

If you want to build UG/Vengevine I'd suggest starting with Alcibiades Felix's 16th place deck from SCG Los Angeles. He lost to eventual winner Alexander Kwan's Painter-Stone deck while playing for Top 8 when he succumbed to fancy play syndrome. You can check out his game 3 on GGSLive.

I know this is from a few months ago prior to New Phyrexia, but at least it's some results from a large scale tourney. Clearly it doesn't just flat out "suck" as some would like you to believe. Probably not the most well positioned in the metagame, but definitely fun to play.

Decklist: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...3&iddeck=42263

[DragoFireheart]

Show me your playtest results and I might be convinced your diatribe wasn't just hot gas.

I have never the interest nor the desire to playtest it beyond it's current state. I've seen the speed pre-SotF banning and tested it shortly after. It's highly fragile to graveyard hate, it draws weak draws far too consistently, and has no advantages over it's other graveyard brothers.